It Does Not Add Up
Rukmini Banerji
One morning in a village in Sultanpur district, Uttar Pradesh, we were making a village report card for education. Every household was asked if its children were enrolled in school. Every child was asked to read a short paragraph and do a simple subtraction problem. As was customary, we went to the Pradhan to tell him what we were doing. The Pradhan took a cursory look at us and said, “Achcha... survey hai? Kariye, kariye” (Oh... It’s a survey? OK, go on). Accustomed to numerous surveys, he did not seem interested in what the survey was about.
We moved systematically household by household, hamlet by hamlet talking to parents, interacting with children. Questions like “Do your children go to school?” got quick and sometimes disinterested answers. But us asking the children to read grabbed everyone’s attention. Children would flock around, wanting to try. Parents would stop working and come to observe. Children playing in the fields put on shirts before coming to read. Mothers and fathers called their children back from wherever they were to be “tested”. The exercise was transformed from a “survey” — collecting data for someone else — into information gathering that everyone wanted right now.
The curiosity was immense. Many parents had no idea whether their children could read or do arithmetic. This was true of both illiterate and literate parents. Young people who were watching the proceedings with interest were requested to help. Within minutes, the whole business turned into a hugely absorbing exercise with people participating in getting children to read or discussing why children could or could not read. Yes, there was some blaming. In Uttar Pradesh, the blame often starts with the British, then moves to the chief minister, then to schools, teachers and onwards.
Finally, the hamlet results were declared: “There are 40 households, 75 children. Seventy children go to school but only 35 of them can read or do sums.” Even as the results were being digested, there was intense discussion about how this was not okay and what could be done to improve things. Clearly the situation would not sort itself out. It needed urgent and rapid change. People agreed that schools must work, teachers must teach but that parents or someone at home or in the neighbourhood too had to help.
Stepping back and looking at the unfolding scene, you could very definitively say that this exercise mattered to those people because it was about children they knew and cared about. It mattered because it was new: people did not know about children’s learning or how to look at it in this simple way. It mattered because they had seen the information being generated right before their eyes. The simplicity of the tool and the method mattered in enabling people to participate. What also mattered was that it was easy to know the results — for your own children and for all the children in the neighbourhood. Whether people were literate or illiterate, it was obvious to all that their own school-going children should be able to do these basic tasks.
In a few days we finished the village report card. We went back to the Pradhan. Without looking up from what he was doing he asked where he should sign. The report card had no need of a signature. Pradhanji thought this was very odd. He looked up at me and said, “Numbers have to be sent up and that needs my signature.” I tried to explain what the report card exercise had found. He listened for a minute and then stated loudly, “The numbers are false. No one actually goes and collects information from all households in the village. That is too much work.” I painstakingly took him through the results — hamlet by hamlet. Now he was paying attention. At the end of my explanation, he blurted out, “The figures have to be wrong.
How can it be that children are going to school and they cannot read?” Now we had Pradhanji’s full attention. There was only one way to settle this issue. Armed with the reading tool, Pradhanji walked into the village. Every child he met was asked to read. By the tenth child, Pradhanji sat down and said, “Yeh to meri izzat ka sawal hai” (This is a question of my honour). He asked how this could be the situation in his village, which he didn’t know about.
The fourth ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) for 2008 is being released today. ASER was designed around countless experiences like the one in Sultanpur, scaled for application in every district in the country. For four years, it has been a nationwide citizens’ initiative to understand the status of children’s schooling and learning in every rural district in the country. Using a common set of simple tools and a common sampling frame, in each district there is a local organisation that does an ASER and then disseminates its findings. Like the village report cards, ASER too is fundamentally based on the participation of ordinary people.
If we do not know, we cannot act. Waiting for the government alone to improve things will take a long time. Like Pradhanji and the parents in Sultanpur, it is essential that we get involved in measuring, understanding and acting to improve the future of our children.
The writer is a Delhi-based educationist.
We moved systematically household by household, hamlet by hamlet talking to parents, interacting with children. Questions like “Do your children go to school?” got quick and sometimes disinterested answers. But us asking the children to read grabbed everyone’s attention. Children would flock around, wanting to try. Parents would stop working and come to observe. Children playing in the fields put on shirts before coming to read. Mothers and fathers called their children back from wherever they were to be “tested”. The exercise was transformed from a “survey” — collecting data for someone else — into information gathering that everyone wanted right now.
The curiosity was immense. Many parents had no idea whether their children could read or do arithmetic. This was true of both illiterate and literate parents. Young people who were watching the proceedings with interest were requested to help. Within minutes, the whole business turned into a hugely absorbing exercise with people participating in getting children to read or discussing why children could or could not read. Yes, there was some blaming. In Uttar Pradesh, the blame often starts with the British, then moves to the chief minister, then to schools, teachers and onwards.
Finally, the hamlet results were declared: “There are 40 households, 75 children. Seventy children go to school but only 35 of them can read or do sums.” Even as the results were being digested, there was intense discussion about how this was not okay and what could be done to improve things. Clearly the situation would not sort itself out. It needed urgent and rapid change. People agreed that schools must work, teachers must teach but that parents or someone at home or in the neighbourhood too had to help.
Stepping back and looking at the unfolding scene, you could very definitively say that this exercise mattered to those people because it was about children they knew and cared about. It mattered because it was new: people did not know about children’s learning or how to look at it in this simple way. It mattered because they had seen the information being generated right before their eyes. The simplicity of the tool and the method mattered in enabling people to participate. What also mattered was that it was easy to know the results — for your own children and for all the children in the neighbourhood. Whether people were literate or illiterate, it was obvious to all that their own school-going children should be able to do these basic tasks.
In a few days we finished the village report card. We went back to the Pradhan. Without looking up from what he was doing he asked where he should sign. The report card had no need of a signature. Pradhanji thought this was very odd. He looked up at me and said, “Numbers have to be sent up and that needs my signature.” I tried to explain what the report card exercise had found. He listened for a minute and then stated loudly, “The numbers are false. No one actually goes and collects information from all households in the village. That is too much work.” I painstakingly took him through the results — hamlet by hamlet. Now he was paying attention. At the end of my explanation, he blurted out, “The figures have to be wrong.
How can it be that children are going to school and they cannot read?” Now we had Pradhanji’s full attention. There was only one way to settle this issue. Armed with the reading tool, Pradhanji walked into the village. Every child he met was asked to read. By the tenth child, Pradhanji sat down and said, “Yeh to meri izzat ka sawal hai” (This is a question of my honour). He asked how this could be the situation in his village, which he didn’t know about.
The fourth ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) for 2008 is being released today. ASER was designed around countless experiences like the one in Sultanpur, scaled for application in every district in the country. For four years, it has been a nationwide citizens’ initiative to understand the status of children’s schooling and learning in every rural district in the country. Using a common set of simple tools and a common sampling frame, in each district there is a local organisation that does an ASER and then disseminates its findings. Like the village report cards, ASER too is fundamentally based on the participation of ordinary people.
If we do not know, we cannot act. Waiting for the government alone to improve things will take a long time. Like Pradhanji and the parents in Sultanpur, it is essential that we get involved in measuring, understanding and acting to improve the future of our children.
The writer is a Delhi-based educationist.
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